Famous Ben’s Pizza

177 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012

What’s a trip to New York without a proper pizzeria visit? For this visit we picked something close to where we were staying, SoHo. First off, I think I wanted to try Ray’s Famous Pizza, but then got it mixed up with Famous Ben’s Pizza…

Anyhow, you can see the pizzeria by the big Italian chef statue it has situated near the front entrance. For a regular lunch hour, it had a good amount of people coming in and out. They even sell Italian icees on the side window.

Once you go inside, there is a big counter on the left with a variety of pre-made pizzas and pastas and bread all for your taking. In the back of the store, there is a window that leads to the kitchen. You can see the cooks measure pizza dough and make-toss the pizza.

I decided to stick to what I came here for, of course, the pizza. I ordered 2 slices of the sausage and mushroom pizza. The combination of this pizza is not on the typical rotation so it took some extra time to make. Upon first inspection, I noticed that the thinness of the slice of pizza is up to New York standard… actually I can’t think of a pizzeria in Houston that makes pizza this thin yet have it still taste like pizza and not one of those hard thin crust pizzas. The dough was soft but firm and the cheese was at a good degree of melty-ness. The sausages were Italian sausage, served by the slices. The mushrooms however, looked like canned mushroom… not really the fresh kind. The pizza sauce was slathered at a good level not to much to take away the flavors of the toppings but just right to balance them all out. To add to the mushroom hating, I think that this pizza is really a pre-made cheese pizza, throw on some sausage, mushroom, sauce, and extra cheese, pop it in the oven and behold! New Pizza from semi-scratch.

Overall, it was good, but it was pretty pricey for pizza of this caliber… not just because its New York, because there are a lot of $1 pizza places in NY.

Also, I was wishing for something even more greasy…

Sorbetto’s

14008 Memorial Drive, 77079.

So it’s Sunday and you feel like being one of the cool people… perhaps an itch for hanging out at the local yuppie coffee shop, then you realize that you hate the scene there.  Too much people, too much traffic, too much of the same Monday thru Friday routine.  Well, Sorbetto’s will offer you a change of environment.  It’s located away from the Galleria crowd.

This was the perfect place to go to on my Sunday to hangout.  The crowd was close to nil and they also offer free wi-fi!  It was quiet and they also have a gelato bar if you get a sweet tooth itch.  I didn’t try the gelato that day, but the selection did look mighty scrumptious.  Instead, I had my generic Italian soda, almond flavored please.  After the drink, I skipped my booty over to Terry Hershey Park for some casual running.  What a productive Sunday!

The interior was nicely decorated to remain modern yet still have that little Italy flair.  I liked it very much so, next time I’ll make it a point to try the gelato.

Mandola’s Market

4700 West Guadalupe #12, 78751.

Mandola’s Market is located in The Triangle (Guadalupe & Lamar), Austin’s new posh center. When you walk inside, it is more like a store rather than a restaurant. There are Italian food items to the right and a dessert booth, decked out with gelato, to the left. Farther down, you start seeing tables, it resembles a food court in the middle of a store. They call themselves ‘an authentic Italian grocery, with fine, hard-to-find Italian imports’.

The line was long on a Friday night, mostly dabbed with the elderly and family. I went with three of my friends because I wanted to try something new, and new I did try. I ordered the gnocchi al sugo, potato dumplings with meat sugo and fresh mozzarella. I’ve always wanted to try the gnocchi, but never got the chance because at an Italian restaurant I’m usually blinded by linguine. Gnocchi was soft and semi-chewy to texture. Kind of like mochi or gelatin thats been sitting for a while in liquid and it gets softer, more dough-like. It was good, the meat sugo, which is a long simmered meat sauce, was okay. I never really did care too much for tomato sauce. The fresh mozzarella was the best! Mmm… I love cheese.

My friends had the spaghetti and Italian sausage, spaghetti and meatballs respectively. I only tried the Italian sausage… as far as sausage goes, it tasted great too. I don’t think you can really mess up sausage, but I certainly love Italian spiced sausage.

My other friend made her own medium pizza. The toppings included fresh arugula, basil, and mushroom. I didn’t taste this either, but I bet it was delicious and very much like rabbit food… kidding.

After that, we had some dessert. Gelato was on order because, c’mon, they had a gelato booth! I got the amaretto flavor one and the other gelato flavor was spkasoiotjlta… um… yeah, forgot what it was. Then there was the inevitable fruit tart.

The meal was simple, homey, and personal… a good café hot spot for relaxing and a good read. I can see it being a yuppie-ish hot spot for lunch though.

Veneto Italian Grill

8500 Highway 6 North, 77095

Look! It’s open on Sundays now! Ha, okay, all jokes aside… I don’t know how many times I passed by this restaurant before but never got a chance to go check it out. It is a local restaurant and this is the only location it caters to. I would say that this would definitely be a great date place to take someone, Italian eateries are notorious for those, so I had to call up my close girlfriend and off we went.

We ordered an appetizer, the ravioli friti, breaded and pan fried cheese ravioli with pomodoro sauce. Personally, I didn’t care too much for this dish, I wanted to taste the calamari but had to be supportive of my vegetarian friend. The sauce was really strong and covered up the ravioli. I think I might have liked the fried ravioli plain… but that’s just me, not gung ho about heavy tomato sauces. I forgot to take a picture of the bread… the bread came with really good dipping oil over a garlic seasoning.

Instead of salad, I got the tomato basil soup for an extra charge. I am glad, because I really like basil, so I wanted to try the tomato basil soup. Previously, I’ve only experienced tomato basil bisques, so I was very well aware of the chunky and thickness to the soup, but this one was rather thin. Soup means soup, the flavors were great and I got mouthfuls of basil. Very delicious, would order again.

For my main dish, I ordered the linguine vongole with white clam sauce. I decided to go all out and added the Italian sausage to my dish, granted for an extra charge, but hey at least you get that option. Did I mention that I like cheese? So I told the waitress to keep it going on the parmesan. This is actually my favorite pasta dish of all time, so any way that it is made, I usually like some aspect of it. Plentiful clams and I think four mussels, the oil base sauce was drenching. Throughout some parts of the dish I felt like a pig from all the oil the pasta was swimming in. The dish might have been a little salty too, but nonetheless very good. I would definitely order this again.

My friend had the melanzana parmigiana which is basically eggplant parmesan. I haven’t seen it like this before, baked in a single serving casserole dish. The marinara sauce again was a little to happy, but overall the eggplant was good. Very good, and oh so cheesy. You can’t tell how cheesy it is but trust me, layers of fried eggplant divided by layers of cheese. The spaghetti in the background was seasoned with olive oil and herbs, the basic stuff to go alone with the bold flavors of the parmigiana.

Overall, great restaurant and not very chain like, more so a local delicacy. Can’t call it a mom and pop shop because the ambiance is semi romantic and there is a live grand piano player at the front. The flavors are bold and salty, I would actually like it even better if they cut out some salt, but to others it is just right. Definitely would go back, but it wasn’t really that cheap, like I said before, great date place.

|Veneto Webpage|

Cucumber Cream Chicken Pasta Trio

I should nickname this, pasta del trio C, heh!

So, I had to make a meal (4/1/07) for my trainer because she requested a birthday meal… can’t go wrong with chicken and pasta right? Found some chicken thighs on sale at the grocers this weekend so decided to use that instead of chicken breast (white meat take a break). The sucky part was trimming the fat off the thighs and then shredding the thigh meat; in the end I think I just said screw shredding and started dicing. Anyhow, cooked that with olive oil and garlic. The cream sauce is made from white wine, which is awesome if you deglaze the pan right after the chicken, Italian dressing seasoning, and cream cheese. I thought about adding more cheese, but decided that the dish was fattening enough as it stands. Oh and of course I put butter in there somewhere along the line… Threw in the chicken and then the pasta, the cucumber was kind of an after thought. I needed to veg up the dish, but refused to do broccoli or celery or those staple veggies, and then came cucumber. I thought cucumber would be crisp, refreshing, and mild in flavor. However, it wasn’t exactly mild in flavor, but I don’t mind cucumber one bit, so I think it was alright.  For the pasta, since I was having fun with random veggies already, I decided on using a trio of pasta: penne, shells, and twirls.

I was happy. It tasted great. albeit, a little tad wittle on the salty side for me.

Leona’s

While a couple of friends were in town, we stopped by Chicago’s popular family-owned-and-operated chain of Leona’s Restaurant.

Who doesn’t enjoy a loaf of bread with three different sauces/spread (marinara, garlic, and Parmesan) to hold you down?

My friend ordered a Gourmet pizza called The Club (chicken, bacon, cheddar, mozzarella, and huge slices of tomato).  Cheese lovers, this thin crust pizza was drenched in cheese, and it tastes amazing.

The menu gave us plenty to choose from, but since I wasn’t too hungry, I went straight for dessert.  Their tiramisu had just the right amount of richness, creaminess, and coffee liquor.

Chicago’s Best Deep Dish: Giordano’s

So, according to NBC, Giordano’s serves up the “Best Pizza in America” (along with several other acknowledgments nationwide). With several locations in Chicago, (also a few in Florida) I had to give it a try.

As we know, Chi-town is known for our infamous DEEP-DISH pizzas. Giordano’s has no problem serving up ultimate cheese-stuffed deep dishes for you and a group of friends. Cheese lovers, prep yourself…

Deep-dish Cheese-stuffed, added Pepperoni:
(Medium: According to menu, Serves 2-3)

Yeah, so between 3 people, we finished about half. These slices are definitely filling. The last picture shows my own little addition of red pepper flakes in order to spice things up; add a little color (it’s a habit; I’m Thai).

At a second visit…

Medium, Deep-dish Cheese-stuffed Pizza, added Sausage and Spinach:

Still, even with four of us, there were two slices left. For those of you who love cheese, Giordano’s will not disappoint. They have several options of add-ons from the must-have Chicago Italian sausage to anchovies.

Waiting time is about 30-45 mins. Prices are reasonable.